Lisa & Keith's Story

“The kids love it. They run all over!”

This is the first thing Lisa says as she welcomes us into her new home. Two of her children, Dominic (age 6) and Angel (age 4), are currently at school, but 10-month-old Pamela stands happily in the middle of the family room bouncing from leg to leg as she cautiously navigates from one piece of furniture to the next.

Lisa and her husband, Keith, moved into the home on the west side of Grand Rapids the week before Christmas, just in time for the holidays, after spending nearly five months at Mel Trotter Ministries.

“Angel has been asking for months when we’d move into our new home,” said Lisa. “And now we’re here. It was a good Christmas.”

Keith and Lisa lived in Kalamazoo before moving to Mel Trotter Ministries.

“Our neighborhood in Kalamazoo was becoming more and more dangerous,” said Keith. “There were altercations in our front yard over drugs. There were guns. There were shootings. There were threats. It was no longer safe for my wife and my kids. We had to leave.”

The family left many of their possessions behind and moved to Grand Rapids to stay with Keith’s mom. They soon discovered three adults and three young children living in one small apartment was not ideal and moved to Mel Trotter Ministries shortly thereafter.

“Mel Trotter Ministries gave us a chance,” said Keith. “A chance to be warm and to have bedding and to eat. And they helped us get back on our feet too. Crystal, our caseworker, was incredible. A true sweetheart. She was such a nice, helpful girl, and she told us never, ever to give up.”

Keith and Lisa’s plan for the future?

“This is a start. This place. Now we need full-time jobs to fix this place up a bit, to get another car, to make a good year of it,” said Keith. “And we want to give back too. I want to go back to Mel Trotter and give them my everything. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know where we’d be. I’m serious. I’m really serious. Everyone there has really helped us out a lot.”